Wednesday 20 August 2008

Gee-wiz-dumb!

Time flies like an arrow and fruit flies like a banana. In my wisdomless days it took me a while to comprehend, and then…it was all hahahaha!! And now in all my wisdom..no longer funny. (GEE)

(Another of Groucho Marx’s to add to the hahas:
“Q: What do you get when you cross an insomniac, an agnostic, and a dyslexic?A: Someone who stays up all night wondering if there is a Dog.”
Hahahaha!! )

Speaking of wisdom, have wisdom teeth graced any of you? Trivia: the absence of wisdom teeth is referred to as hypodontia. Generally they are referred to as wisdom teeth because they appear in one’s mid twenties or so. Now, I was destined to be wise too, but my dentist uncle was most eager to snatch all my wisdom away claiming my teeth were ‘impacted’. At 23, I was sans 2 wisdom teeth. It was not until my late 20s (OMG!) that the tooth fairy decided to bestow upon me some more wisdom. It’s been six months and there are still little bits of wisdom sprouting out in some corner of my poor gum. (WIZ)

Sadly, not so wise were some dumb flies who managed to find their way into my home. To describe my bedroom, two cupboards (with mirrors) face the large sliding windows that adorn the opposite wall. With the windows open, the reflection of the view is obviously what you see in the mirror. Now there were these two flies, somewhat bored with their current surroundings – who decided to explore. (DUMB)

Adventurous maybe, harebrained (or flybrained) they definitely were –repeatedly flying into the reflection, banging into the mirror every 10 seconds, in an attempt to fly out of the room! In the process, one of them eventually killed itself..I wonder why but I laughed out loud, albeit I did feel sorry for the dead fly. Wonder if there is someone huge being out there watching us all tiny creatures as well...

Speaking of great big people, the head of our business the other day was in the mood to distribute gyaan. One to talk and talk and talk, he goes on about how one should see the picture, from 30,000 feet and blah. At the end of the discussion, on coming out of the cabin, a colleague goes “haan haan pehle tees hazaar feet ka view dikhake, phir vahan se ek bada dhakka

Conversations other than those from 30,000 feet in Mumbai over the months of June, July, August and maybe September even usually have one common topic. The rains, or this year the lack of them. In a way it unites all of Mumbaikars, especially after the debacle in 2005.

Year 2008 seems to have reversed the above situation. According to the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) “the six lakes from which Mumbai gets its supply of water could sustain the city’s need for another 100 days at the most”. What alarmed was this statement – “Mumbai uses 3,350 million litres of water daily”
(Source: DNA)

To end this, I read somewhere that Sonu Sood (who? pseud?) requested a rain-sequence in an upcoming film to be shot with mineral water and not the normal water usually used. Why? Because, he found his hair completely ruined when ‘normal’ water is used.

Tuesday 19 August 2008

Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake……

…………………………baker's man.
Bake me a cake as fast as you can.
Pat it and roll it and mark it with "B"
And put it in the oven for Baby and me.

Finally bought myself a muffin tray with 250 of those cute paper cups. This is what became of all the batter that went into the tray, nice ne c’est pas?





Its called Devil’s Food Cupcakes. Am not sure of the authenticity of this, but I read some where that until the first half of the 19th century chocolate was not used as an ingredient in cakes!!
(Aren’t I glad was born in 1980)

Now, why is it called devil’s food cake? Perhaps the enormous quantities of cocoa & dark chocolate that go into making it. Also, baking soda used as one of the ingredients is supposed to cause reddening of the cocoa powder when baked (didn’t detect a faintest trace of this though).
Also, contrasts with the Angel cake which is light, white & fluffy – which translates to lots of egg & egg whites (blech).

Anyways, here’s the recipe for those who might want to try it out, makes about 9 cupcakes.

Ingredients:

Butter – ½ cup melted
· Cocoa – ¾ cup
· Dark chocolate - 50 gms chopped into bits (about 9-10 tbsp chopped)
· Eggs – 1
· Sugar - 3/4 cup (can use a bit of cinnamon flavored sugar as well)
· Vanilla extract - 1 tsp
· Flour - 3/4 cup
· Baking powder - 3/4 tsp
· Baking soda - 1/2 tsp
· Salt - 1/2 tsp (no need to use if using Amul butter, preferably use the new variety with reduced salt)
· Butter milk - 1/2 cup (mix equal amounts of water & yoghurt)

Method
Mix melted butter with sugar
Add the buttermilk – mix
Whisk in beaten egg with vanilla
Sift cocoa, flour, baking powder and soda
Add one spoon at a time to the liquid mixture
Line muffin tray with paper cups, spoon 1 tbsp of batter, add about 1 tsp of chopped up dark chocolate bits, follow up with another 1 tbsp of batter
Bake at 175 degrees celcius for about 20 mins
Enjoy!